home
Renewed interest in
John William
“Blind” Boone
and ragtime
By Dianna Borsi O’Brien
Photo by Deanna Dikeman
More than four score after his death, classical and ragtime composer and pianist
John William “Blind” Boone is making news in Columbia, where a resurgence of interest in the man, his home and
his music is currently taking place.
For starters, a capital campaign sponsored by the Blind Boone Heritage Foundation will soon kick off to fund
the interior renovation of his home on Fourth Street for a proposed museum. The project cost is estimated at about
$500,000, including museum exhibits. Today the house gleams under a fresh coat of historically accurate red paint
as part of an exterior renovation completed last year.
Born in 1864 to a runaway slave and a bugler in the Missouri Militia, Boone lost his eyesight when his eyes were
removed at 6 months old to save him from the ravages of “brain fever.” Boone’s mother was once owned by a
relative of Daniel Boone, which explains the musician’s surname.
Despite his origins, he went on to become one of Missouri’s most famous people, black or white; he toured the
country and Canada for decades and played classical, ragtime, spirituals and popular music of the time — including
his own compositions and arrangements.
Boone was the first musician to bring spirituals to the concert stage, says Lucille Salerno, a founder of the
Original “Blind” Boone Ragtime & Early Jazz Festival, which has been producing ragtime festivals in Columbia since
1991. She’s also one of the founding members of the Blind Boone Heritage Foundation.
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Blind Boone:
Projects and Events
Boone lived in the house on Fourth
Street from 1889 until his death in 1927.
Taking the home from the eyesore it
once was to the beauty it now is cost
$455,587, which included expenditures for
emergency stabilization, according to Assistant City Manager Paula Hertwig Hopkins, in
addition to its purchase price of $182,064.
The work has been funded through the
lodging tax, Community Development Block
grants, restoration grants from the state of
Missouri and other funds.
Yet in many ways, the two-story wood
structure beside the Second Missionary
Baptist Church is an ordinary house for
its time, according to Nick Peckham of
Peckham & Wright Architects. Like many
houses of its day, the Boone home
features custom-made windows and a
rock foundation.
But the house is so much more, says
Clyde Ruffin, president of the Blind Boone
Heritage Foundation, senior pastor of
Second Missionary Baptist Church and a
professor of theater at the University
of Missouri.
“It’s a symbol,” Ruffin says. “We need
symbols to keep the story alive.”
The story of Boone and his house is one of
overcoming obstacles without complaint.
The slogan for Boone’s concert company
was “Merit, Not Sympathy, Wins.” Boone
has also been quoted as saying his blindness was not a handicap but instead helped
him become the talented musician he was.
For years, his piano and portrait resided
in Frederick Douglass High School and
provided inspiration to the black community, Ruffin says.
The home also withstood its own
challenges. In the 1930s, it housed the
Stuart Parker Memorial Funeral Home
and then the Warren Funeral Chapel, the
only African-American-owned business to
survive the urban renewal razing of the
22 February/March 2010
1960s, according to a Special Business
District and Central Columbia Association
Web site publication. When the City
purchased the house in November 2000,
it had so much termite damage, it took
significant effort to simply stabilize
the building.
In 1980 the house was placed on the
National Register of Historic Places for its local
importance in black history. Then in 2003, the
structure was reclassified and elevated to the
level of national significance.
Today, new energy-efficient windows
keep out the wind, but the house lacks
plumbing, electricity and heating. Glass
cracks underfoot on the wood floor, and
’70s-era paneling covers many of the walls,
but hardwood pocket doors peek out of
their frames, and the high ceilings once
again have been revealed. Woodcarvings
grace the exposed staircase and surround
the glass-tiled fireplace. But there’s no
furniture or any sign of the wealth or talent
of the man who once lived there.
Despite his success, Boone and his wife,
Eugena, had unmarked graves until 1971.
And Boone’s home wasn’t slated for public
restoration until it was purchased by the
City in 2000.
So what happened?
In 1916, Boone’s close friend and
manager John Lange Jr. died, and by
then people were moving away from live
concerts and were beginning to listen to
the radio, play phonographs and take
to the roads in new automobiles. After
Lange’s death, Boone had a series of
managers, but none of them could
recreate the popularity and bookings of
Lange’s efforts. By May 1927, Boone was
talking of retiring.
More than 80 years later, Boone’s legacy,
his music and his memory remain in the city
he once called home.
EVENTS:
May 16: Nobody Else Ever Played Like
Boone: The Life and Times of John
William "Blind" Boone, a play sponsored
by the State Historical Society’s Missouri
History in Performance Theatre. 7 p.m.,
Second Missionary Baptist Church on
Broadway, Free. For more information,
contact Christine Montgomery at the State
Historical Society of Missouri at 882-2476
or [email protected].
June 9 and 10: The Original “Blind”
Boone Ragtime & Early Jazz Festival will
feature several performers including the
Ophelia Orchestra from Oslo, Norway.
Missouri Theatre Center for the Arts. For
more information contact Lucille Salerno
at 445-2539 or [email protected].
RESOURCES:
Blind Boone Restoration Project
Facebook page
See photos from the restoration project,
find information from past festivals, and
get information on Boone. Become a
fan, and learn more.
Visit facebook.com, and search for Blind
Boone Restoration Project.
Blind Boone Park Renovation
Group Web site
This site for the group in Warrensburg,
Mo., features extensive information
about John William “Blind” Boone, much
of it collected, researched and written by
self-taught Boone expert Mike Shaw.
blindboonepark.org/events.html
On the Shelf
Blind Boone: Missouri’s Ragtime Pioneer
by Jack A. Batterson
Blind Boone: Piano Prodigy by
Madge Harrah
Bringing “Blind” Boone To Life Again
The life, times and sounds of John William “Blind” Boone
will come alive on May 16 with the premiere of a new
play about the renowned musician.
Sponsored by the State Historical Society’s Missouri History
in Performance Theatre, Nobody Else Ever Played Like Boone:
The Life and Times of John William “Blind” Boone is being
written from primary historical sources, such as interviews with
Boone and those who knew him, and will include recordings
of his piano playing.
The first performance of the play will take place in the
Second Missionary Baptist Church on Broadway, the same
venue where Boone’s career launched in 1879.
Mary Barile, the play’s writer and a recent doctoral graduate
in theater from the University of Missouri, is excited about
bringing Boone to life.
When Worlds Collide
Ragtime music melds African syncopation with marches,
folk tunes and European romantic strains, says local music
expert Kevin Walsh, who hosts a radio show on KOPN that
features jazz and blues music and writes about music for local
publications. This intertwining of music and cultures, he says,
could only happen in Missouri, where the mighty Mississippi and
Missouri rivers create a cultural crossroads.
“Wonderful things happen in music where worlds collide,
and it happens all the time in Missouri,” Walsh says. “People in
Missouri get the beat.” In addition to John Williams “Blind” Boone,
Chuck Berry, often referred to as the father of rock and roll, also calls
Missouri home.
Missouri’s collision of cultures led to Boone’s development
of ragtime, America’s first original music, according to Lucille
Salerno, a founder of the Original “Blind” Boone Ragtime & Early
Jazz Festival and founding member of the Blind Boone Heritage
Foundation.
“Ragtime swept through the world and completely took over,”
Salerno says.
Although Boone is often remembered for his ragtime roots, he
was actually trained as a classical musician, composer and pianist.
He toured 10 months a year for decades and set the stage for
later ragtime luminaries.
“Scott Joplin is standing on his shoulders,” Salerno says.
As a child, Boone showed an aptitude for music. Community
members in Warrensburg, where Boone lived at the time, paid
to send Boone to St. Louis to attend the Missouri School for
the Blind, where he heard the music that would later become
ragtime being played in the Tenderloin district. Boone soaked up
a new kind of sound, a mixture of African rhythms, work songs,
spirituals and popular music.
There, he learned to “rag” music, or to add syncopated beats.
“Lightning in a bottle.”
That’s how Walsh describes the happy accident that resulted in
ragtime, the music that made Boone famous.
“That’s the fun part about historic theater,” Barile says. “It
makes people come alive. They are not just people on a page
any longer. This play will give them their voices back. We’ll
learn about their passion, humor and suffering.”
Barile says she hopes community members will take part
in the play. Because the play will be conducted as a reader’s
theater, no memorization is required.
In addition to using historical materials, Barile is calling
on help from noted Boone experts, scholars and devotees,
including Lucille Salerno, Missouri historian Mike Shaw, musician John Davis and author Jack A. Batterson.
The play will open and close with a spiritual, just as Boone
did his concert performances, and songs will be performed by
Celestine Hayes, a local singer and expert on Negro spirituals,
according to Christine Montgomery of the State Historical Society.
Merit,
Not
Sympathy,
WiNS
Boone’s concert company slogan
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